Travis Kalanick, the infamous Uber CEO who once got caught on a dashboard camera cursing out a driver, is a man who could probably use a few deep cleansing breaths given what is going on over at his company right now. Amid hiring two female execs — Frances Frei from Harvard Business School and Bozoma Saint John from Apple — the company publicly fired 20 people following an ongoing investigation into the company’s alleged sexual-harassment problem. Uber also fired another top employee on Wednesday for obtaining and sharing the medical records of a rape victim in India who he believed was lying. (This firing was not a result of the internal investigation.) But don’t sweat it! Speaking in New York City on Wednesday at CNBC’s iCONIC conference, Uber board member, and extremely well-rested startup founder, Arianna Huffington said Kalanick has begun meditating in the office. His chosen zen space? Uber’s room for lactation.
“Literally, it was an amazing moment last week when we were in the office and he said, ‘I really need to go meditate in order to be in a place to make good decisions right now,’” Huffington said. “And literally [he] went into a lactation room that happened to be open, because they [Uber] don’t have meditation rooms yet. This is part of the change coming.”
Huffington said upon returning she “could see the change in the way he was and the way he could process making decisions.” Hopefully none of his employees were looking to use the room at that time for, you know, its designated purpose, lactating. Or its alternative purposes, crying and making phone calls out of the earshot of your boss.
